“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.” – Franklin D Roosevelt

Just hours before the Globe and Mail debates on the economy, a story surfaced suggesting that Justin Trudeau was in trouble in Papineau. It started out as “may be” but then quickly changed to “is”‘ as the results of a poll were released.

This sampling suggested that Trudeau’s NDP opponent, Anne Legace Dowson (shown above), was 11 points ahead, worrisome if it were true, but it wasn’t. Turns out that it was the NDP who commissioned the poll of 375 people, and that 86% of those they contacted, were NDP supporters.

We can certainly understand the party’s deception, but why would the media go along?

Canada’s polling industry is now worried that this fraudulent survey, that garnered such sensational headlines, will further damage their reputation. It was clearly used to throw Justin Trudeau off his game. His anger did show through, and at times he appeared frantic, that evening, but was still able to get his points across, and the Globe and Mail gave him the win for the best economic vision.

What was supposed to drive voters away from the Liberal Party, and to the NDP, backfired, and they may have lost support from both pollsters and the press, who are less than thrilled that they were dragged down with them.

So Who is This “Star” Candidate?

In 2008, Anne Legace Dowson was introduced to the voting public, by way of a spread published in a Quebec newspaper. In it she compared herself to Barack Obama, and according to the paper, everyone thought of her as “the Oprah of Quebec”.

However, one letter to the editor, questioned this, given that they had never even heard of her “until the media pumped her up”.

I was born and bred in Montreal and consider myself pretty well up to date on who’s who in this city…. but I’ve never heard of this Anne Lagace Dowson until yesterday. That was the day the Montreal Gazette wrote a huge half page story about her nomination.

Today’s supper time local news on ALL the networks had wide coverage of her……it seems like they are trying to make her into the winner before the by-election date has even been set.

She has a radio show on the local CBC station. I think that explains why I’ve never heard of her. CBC english radio usually pulls in between 4 and 8 percent of the english speaking audience….in other words between 92 and 96% of anglo Montrealers NEVER listen to it..!!!!

Legace Dowson was running against Marc Garneau in Westmount, and with the media hype, the prediction was a tight Liberal/NDP race. However, although outspending Garneau, the results were much different than anticipated.

She didn’t compete in 2011, instead focusing on local politics. In 2014 she ran for the seat of commissioner for the English school board. It was an important election, since the very existence of school boards was on the line. The minister of education made it clear, that if there wasn’t more voter interest, he would pull the plug on them.

Legace Dowson led a team of ten, against her opponent’s ten, representing the wards in the school board district. She only managed success in two of the ten, one after a recount, by a handful of votes. She claimed that there was election tampering, though her arguments were weak.

In fact, one of her people actually misrepresented themselves, to obtain voter information, and the police had to be called. It was crazy. The unnecessary drama and feeble campaigning, that garnered just 20% support, hardly makes her a star. At least not in any galaxy I know of.

Given this desperate attempt to make her look better than she is, and more popular than she is; we can only conclude that the NDP are aware of this. If she can’t even come close in a school board election …..

While both the Conservatives and NDP have been relentlessly attacking Trudeau, a strange phenomenon has occurred. Instead of Thomas Mulcair presenting himself as an alternative to Harper, he now appears to be an ally.

Both are committed to balanced budgets, as unrealistic as that is, and both are now committed to the F-35s, simply because Trudeau has promised to scrap them. This puts him with progressives, who also want the procurement stopped, as do many members of the Canadian military, including General Leslie.

Yes, the NDP will argue that Mulcair only wants a better bidding process, but the headlines of Mulcair and Harper opposing Trudeau’s stance, make the two appear as comrades in arms. Not what either of them want, though it will not harm Harper as much as Mulcair.

In trying so hard to discredit the Liberal leader, the NDP have failed to give the voting public a reason to support them. Their platform is weak and financial plan seriously flawed. They produced a nice glossy folder with nothing in it, but gobblygook.

Trudeau’s strategy, once thought dangerous, has proven to be brilliant. He has set himself apart from Harper and Mulcair, by claiming that deficits are Ok, F-35s aren’t and high income earners should pay more taxes, so that everyone else can pay less.

He is being judged by the enemies he has made, as Roosevelt opined, and those enemies are looking more like a united front, than competition against each other for the prime minister’s job.

I’m not sure when “what would Michael Ignatieff do?” became the Libs’ operating mantra. But as long as the subject of fighter procurement is on the table, let’s highlight the real similarity between two parties on that front: both the Cons and the Libs seem bent on handing Lockheed Martin billions of dollars it’s done . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: On rigged outcomes

– Lana Payne discusses the contrast between Theresa Spence’s selfless efforts to improve the lives of First Nations citizens, and Stephen Harper’s callous indifference: Is a hunger strike the answer? I honestly do not know, but then I have not known Chief Spence’s anguish. After all, she says her . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links

– Bill Curry reports on Jim Flaherty’s arbitrary choice to declare that Canadians can’t have any more CPP retirement security than the most callous provincial government in the country is willing to grant them. And Martin Regg Cohn rightly responds that our reaction should be to pressure Flaherty . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

– Paul Dechene interviews Marc Spooner about Saskatchewan residents left behind in the province’s boom: One way that our growing income gap can be hand-waved away is by pointing to the fact that every other province that goes through an economic boom faces this.

– David Suzuki makes the case for evaluating our well-being through Gross National Happiness rather than GDP alone: There’s more to happiness than just having a clean environment – and Bhutan has yet to get there. According to research for the UN Conference on Happiness, “The happiest countries in . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

– Frances Russell discusses how the Harper Cons have capitalized on the general public’s lack of familiarity with how our parliamentary system is supposed to work – and the conventional checks and balances which have been overridden at every turn by a governing party which isn’t interested in preserving . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links

– Jonathan Bernstein comments on how the U.S.’ right-wing echo chamber may be preventing Mitt Romney and other Republicans from recognizing when their spin has no hope of convincing voters: As Romney rolled out yet another of these insipid, implausible campaign talking points, however, it occurs to me that . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links

– Winslow Wheeler compares the NDP’s F-35 hearings to politics on the opposite side of the U.S. border: The differences between Canadian politicians and members of Congress are utterly stunning. Unlike here, oversight in the Canadian Parliament is alive and well. In Canada, I found two political behaviors unheard . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

– I’ll follow up with one extra note from Mark Carney’s address to the CAW – as the headlines seem to have missed a rather important point about the relative effect of the Canadian dollar and even the widest possible definition of labour issues: He noted Canada’s export . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

– pogge offers up the definitive response to the Cons’ attempt to encourage a sell-off of First Nations reserve land: When you look past the paternalistic argument that the only way First Nations communities can possibly thrive is to be more like us, this is what’s left: …businesses that . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

– Michael Harris lists ten things the Harper Cons want Canadians to forget before the 2015 election. But it’s worth keeping in mind that their expectations for mind-wiping are surely shaped by their own willingness to completely forget what they were repeating incessantly before a change in talking points: . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Wednesday, May 9 saw the first Committee of the Whole discussion of the Cons’ budget bill – with the opportunity for hours of direct questions about military spending giving rise to little more than even more tedious repetition of F-35s talking points in place of responses.

Tuesday, May 8 saw another day of debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget legislation – and another day of general non-responsiveness from the Cons as to its actual effects. But that wasn’t for lack of important contributions from the opposition benches.

Thursday, April 5 was the final sitting day in the House of Commons before a two-week Easter break. And the debate was much less sharp than in previous days, as the primary bill up for discussion was supported by all parties.

Tuesday, March 27 saw a day dominated by the type of serious discussion about the role of the financial sector that we should expect in the years to come – even if the basis for that discussion was less than we should have hoped for.

With the revelation that Minister Peter MacKay failed to ask many of the obvious/necessary questions when working on the F-35 procurement, the subject of basic ministerial/government responsibility has been weighing heavily on my mind as of late.

– Lawrence Martin comments on the growing resonance of inequality as an issue for Canadian voters. But the most telling sign may be less the Ontario NDP’s steps to highlight the need for more progressive taxation (as Martin recognizes), but the McGuinty Libs’ response – which in rebuffing . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links

Yesterday Andrew Coyne (once the great apologist for the Harpercons) tore a strip of Peter MacKay and the Government in general so long and so deep that if these events were taking place a generation ago we would see the entire cabinet resign in disgrace.